Lalo Schifrin

Lalo Schifrin arrived in the United States on Dizzy Gillespie's invitation and stayed for six decades. Born Boris Claudio Schifrin in Buenos Aires in 1932, he studied piano, harmony and composition in Argentina, then in Paris, where he worked in the orbit of Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud by day and absorbed the city's jazz clubs by night. Back home he formed a jazz orchestra; Gillespie heard it, engaged him, and their Gillespiana followed. His screen music combined jazz, orchestral writing and Latin-American rhythms. The Mission: Impossible theme uses five beats to the bar; his film scores include Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Dirty Harry and Enter the Dragon. He won several Grammy Awards, received an honorary Academy Award for his career, and went on writing concert music throughout. He died in Los Angeles on 26 June 2025, aged ninety-three. His father played violin at the Teatro Colón for thirty years; law and sociology at the University of Buenos Aires gave way to a scholarship to the Paris Conservatoire and the sixteen-piece band he formed after his return became part of a weekly television variety show. He joined Gillespie's quintet after their meeting in New York in 1960, settled in Los Angeles as a resident in 1963 and took American citizenship in 1969. The Mannix theme followed Mission: Impossible a year later in waltz time, he arranged much of the Three Tenors concerts in the 1990s, and the honorary Oscar was awarded in 2018.